Just like one swallow does not make a summer, one cold night in Auckland last Saturday does not define the Springboks 2023 winter.
What I underestimated was the lack of rugby for so many who started, especially given the Test was played in Auckland, New Zealand, against an All Blacks match 23 in which most had been active a week earlier against Argentina in Mendoza.
There has been criticism of the Boks that they looked past it and that they looked old. Mention was made that the core was nearer the end of their international careers than at the beginning.
I don’t subscribe to that view.
The Boks are an old team in that they have been together since 2018 and they are an old team in that just four of the match 23 against the All Blacks were younger than 30 years-old. Damian Willemse, at 25, was the youngest, but to some even that would seem old because Willemse has been a presence with the Boks since 2019.
Rassie Erasmus and Jacques Nienaber, at the helm of the Boks in different guises since 2018, have been consistent in their player selections and loyal to these selections. They will argue that the Boks have won the three biggest prizes in the past five years in the 2019 Rugby Championship, the 2019 Rugby World Cup and the 2021 British & Irish Lions series. The Boks have also won one, drawn one and lost one against the All Blacks in New Zealand in that time, won one and lost one against the All Blacks in Australia in 2022 and won one and lost one against the All Blacks in South Africa in 2022. Clearly not much separates the two teams, which was evidenced at the 2019 World Cup when the All Blacks beat the Boks 23-13 in the group stages, but the Boks won the World Cup by hammering an England team that had humiliated the All Blacks a week earlier.
All the players will be more settled for the challenge of Argentina in Johannesburg next weekend because most of them would have been reintroduced to Test rugby after lengthy absences.
The All Blacks and Boks potentially could meet as early as the quarterfinals at the World Cup in France and there would be no clear favourite. The two will play a pre-World Cup match at Twickenham but neither is likely to pick their first choice XVs.
There is a sporting lifetime between last Saturday’s Boks defeat against the All Blacks and the World Cup final in Paris at the end of October. The Boks have four Tests before their opening World Cup match, which is 320 minutes of competitive rugby. They will then have another four Tests before the quarterfinal.
Way too much is being read into a World Cup analysis of the Boks, based on what happened in Auckland. The Boks were blitzed in the opening 20 minutes because too many players came into that match too cold. It had nothing to do with them being too old.
A week previously, in near perfect late afternoon sunshine at Loftus Versfeld in Pretoria, many old Springboks were golden in their performance. Duane Vermeulen, as just one example, was imposing and influential in Pretoria and equally effective when introduced in the second half in Auckland. Vermeulen is 37-years-old.
Lukhanyo Am is 29 years old and has consistently been good since 2019. He had a difficult night in Auckland, as did most of his teammates. It happens in sport.
This was not a team off the pace because of the heavy hooves of father time.
All the players will be more settled for the challenge of Argentina in Johannesburg next weekend because most of them would have been reintroduced to Test rugby after lengthy absences.
There will be changes to the starting XV and match 23 composition and it will marry the best of the Pretoria win and the lessons from the Auckland defeat.
Eben Etzebeth is not too old to play Test rugby. He just had not played a competitive game in 15 weeks, was coming back from a shoulder operation and was dealing with the pain of his father’s passing in the week of the Test. Etzebeth, as just one example, will be a different beast at the World Cup.
Lood de Jager had not played a match in eight weeks, Kwagga Smith (18 weeks), Franco Mostert (nine weeks) and Jasper Wiese (eight weeks).
These players are not old: they were underdone for this Test match.
The 2015 All Blacks were derided as the Old Blacks because the average age was 29. Their response was to be the first team in World Cup history to successfully defend their title.
The average age of the Boks at the World Cup in France will be 30 and being 30 certainly isn’t going to war with Dad’s Army.
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